Bush nicknamed his cook “cookie”? Is that how you nickname people — just stick the “ie” afer their occupation/relation?
The man who cooked President George W Bush’s breakfasts, lunches and dinners for the first four years of his presidency reveals in a new book that the most powerful man in the world likes no more than a cheap processed cheese sandwich for lunch.”Kraft singles on white bread was one of this President’s most requested lunch items,” says Walter Scheib, who, from 1994 until he was sacked by Laura Bush in early 2005, was Executive Chef at the White House.
Scheib, a professionally trained cook with an outstanding CV even before he started work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, tells me flatly that making lunch for Bush was “not very challenging and didn’t really require any of my professional training”.
But according to Scheib, this is not a making a partisan or political statement. During our conversation over coffee in a swish New York bar, he does refer to the burgers and ‘dogs to which his first Presidential employer, Bill Clinton, was partial. Yet Scheib’s book, White House Chef, part memoir, part cookbook, clearly shows who he preferred working for, and why, during his 11 years in the basement kitchen, even if his professionalism – and presumably his desire to work for the big guns again – rule out any the dishing of any serious dirt.
Scheib, or “Cookie” as President Bush liked to call him, is frustratingly discreet when it comes to talking about his tête-à -têtes over toast with his employers. […]
The new President was into simpler food than his predecessor. “He didn’t like soup or salad, or anything green,” says Scheib. “He really just wanted beef and anything that could be prepared in Tex-Mex style. There was little challenge in preparing the President’s lunch.”
President Bush was also reluctant to dine with his wife if she had friends over for lunch or if she was having anything fancy’. “He wanted one of his go-to items such as a cheese sandwich or a peanut butter and honey sandwich on white toast with potato chips,” says Scheib.
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Hm.
What’s in a diet? Okay. Let me put it this way. Clinton, according to this cook, would be most at home with ribs and whatnot. Bush? Individually wrapped processed cheese food on white wonder bread. Crusts, what of it exists on such bread, removed no doubt, because Bush is essentially a five year old. But I have a particularly strange bias about bread, which is essentially that the more grains in it, the better.
Other than that, we have peanut butter and honey? Ugh. Does he also eat Chocolate Covered Sugar Bombs with two spoonfuls of sugar while watching cartoons on Saturday morning? Seriously, I remember eating raw oatmeal with a ridiculous amount of brown sugar in my youth, and that’s about what “peanut butter and honey” comes out to.
Oh well. Luara forces him to eat his broccoli and… real food, I presume. It’s a strange era we’re living in anyway, and Bush is not alone in a sort of prolonged adolescence. It’s just that he happens to be leader of the Free, or Free-ish, World. Also, it seems his stunted growth hasn’t reached the adolescence point yet.
Years from now we are going to be scratching our head regarding Bush. Actually I already am.